fancy in the dip which I took into its contents (pardon me if I say dip, I
never do more than dip into any book), but also because young ---- tells
me that which all whom I have met in this town confirm; namely, that you
are one of those few practical chemists who are at once exceedingly
cautious and exceedingly bold,--willing to try every new experiment, but
submitting experiment to rigid tests. Well, I have an experiment running
wild in this giddy head of mine, and I want you, some day when at leisure,
to catch it, fix it as you have fixed that cylinder, make something of it.
I am sure you can."

"What is it?"

"Something akin to the theories in your work. You would replenish or
preserve to each special constitution the special substance that may fail
to the equilibrium of its health. But you own that in a large
proportion of cases the best cure of disease is less to deal with the
disease itself than to support and stimulate the whole system, so as to
enable Nature to cure the disease and restore the impaired equilibrium by
her own agencies. Thus, if you find that in certain cases of nervous
debility a substance like nitric acid is efficacious, it is because the
nitric acid has a virtue in locking up, as it were, the nervous
energy,--that is, preventing all undue waste. Again, in some cases of
what is commonly called feverish cold, stimulants like ammonia assist
Nature itself to get rid of the disorder that oppresses its normal action;
and, on the same principle, I apprehend, it is contended that a large
average of human lives is saved in those hospitals which have adopted the
supporting system of ample nourishment and alcoholic stimulants."

"Your medical learning surprises me," said I, smiling; "and without
pausing to notice where it deals somewhat superficially with disputable